Y is for Yazoo

Yazoo, not to be confused with a search engine or a scandal 200 years ago in Georgia, were a British synthpop duo from Basildon, Essex who enjoyed some success in the early 1980s.

If you thought Swindon was bleak make a point of not visiting Basildon. It's basically a new town which means it was built in the 1960s so it's like the nasty bits of England without the old parts to redeem it. I have vague memory of its concrete precincts, blurred by the rain on the windscreen, as I killed time waiting for God know's what; or maybe just God.

Yazoo was formed Formed in late 1981 by former Depeche Mode songwriter Vince Clarke (synthesiser) and Alison Moyet (vocals).

Yazoo's first single Only You was released in 1982 and, although its sound was clearly rooted in the synthesizer obsessed eighties, it was an impressive debut, that launched Moyet's big voice on a big stage. She's certainly the sort of gal you'd want right by your side - at least if you found yourself in a fist fight.

The single was followed by Situation and Don't Go in 1982. Which was another excellent single that did well in the charts at the time. It brings back those crazy plastic nightclubs in the 1980s with expensive watery drinks when Yazoo were about the only promising thing on the turn table.

The second album You and Me Both also contained some great tracks like the single Nobody's Diary. I had totally forgotten how good this track was, albeit in an eighties context. We love this song because it is so much about love and loss and raises an important question that goes to the route of modern existence; namely does anybody keep a diary anymore? New hair-oos in this one and Vince stuck his finger in a powet socket.

Yazoo never made it big in the US. Sadly Yazoo split up in 1983, although unusually both elements of the band had some degree of success - Moyet on her own and Clarke as one half of Erasure. Moyet had a Number One hit with Invisible and another major hit with Love Resurrection. Here Moyet does an impression of Lawrence of Arabia minus his motorcycle.

Ultimately Erasure were bigger and better becoming one of the most successful groups of the mid 1980s and early 1990s. This is Ship of Fools.

Curious fact about Yazoo - The band was called Yaz because a band called Yazoo already existed. This is also the name of a birth control pill.